“Training was tougher and I collapsed on the pitch. I came round a little bit, went inside and it happened again.

“I went home to Yorkshire, rushed into hospital a few times with weird symptoms and was admitted because I’d become so weak.’

He would lose three stone in two months and spent five weeks in hospital, diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus and wheelchair-bound for two months afterwards.

He watched Atletico’s UEFA Super Cup final against Chelsea in hospital.

The wilderness

He told the Mail : “I was fearing death because the doctors didn’t have a clue what was going on with me. My heart felt like it was going to stop on occasions... lymph nodes like golf balls.

“Even when they found out what was wrong they couldn’t do much about it. Your body itself has to recover on its own. There’s no cure. I was told that potentially I’d never recover, and that looked pretty likely.”

He admitted to having suicidal thoughts in the Christmas of 2013.

“It’s weird thinking back to it now - I’m in such a different place mentally. It’s like an outer-body experience, it wasn’t me. I suppose I had post-traumatic stress, how quickly everything had been taken away.

“People don’t understand what chronic fatigue is. I’d like to raise awareness about it to be honest, now I believe it exists.”